The bottom line on all this is as I said before Kwan doesn't give a hoot about where she stands in this ranking. I strongly suspect other skaters feel the same way. It's a ranking signifying nothing. It may have something to do in the skating order of the Qualifying Rounds. I'm not sure.

She was low (relatively) on the ISU standings last year too and on the podium...these rankings are based on how many ISU sanctioned competitions you are in, and then even those are weighted if I'm not mistaken, and include more than one year.

anyway, it is, of course, impossible to disagree Joe -- I mean she did finish off the podium for the first time in 10 years last season, and thus 'lost' her podium standing, clearly a decline.

True but there is a world of difference to say given the ISU criteria (which means you have to do the GP to get a high standing) and saying Rochette and Poykio are in the top ten and are therefore better skaters than Kwan which is patently untrue, Kwan is a better skater than both of those girls. Onda and Sebestyen are also in the top ten list and i would say Kwan is head, shoulders and half her torso above those two in terms of skating skills. I would also say she's without a doubt a better skater and Suguri (number 3 in the standings) and also Ando but i know that some people might prefer their skating to Kwan's.

But it's not just Kwan- and I'd be the last person ever to defend her- it's the whole system IMO. Maybe it's OK since they are basing the rankings over several years, but I still can't put much stock in the ratings. Do you really think that Irina is 4th in the world? Suguri 3rd? Arakawa 1st? (THIS YEAR I mean)

If they did it by year, I don't know, maybe it would look better/more accurate. But for now, it's somewhat outdated IMO.

The most ridiculous thing about the system is the fact they don't get rid of retired skaters from the list. IIRC Yags was the leader of the field for the entire 2002/2003 and i think will into the 2003/2004 seasons by virtue of winning every major championship and every competition he cometed in the Olympic season last time around - that is ridiculous!

True but there is a world of difference to say given the ISU criteria (which means you have to do the GP to get a high standing) and saying Rochette and Poykio are in the top ten and are therefore better skaters than Kwan which is patently untrue, Kwan is a better skater than both of those girls. Onda and Sebestyen are also in the top ten list and i would say Kwan is head, shoulders and half her torso above those two in terms of skating skills. I would also say she's without a doubt a better skater and Suguri (number 3 in the standings) and also Ando but i know that some people might prefer their skating to Kwan's.

ITA- and this is why IN MY OPINION this system really doesn't make much sense.

I suppose it does once you factor in the GP and several seasons of skating, but IMO the reason the ranking system doesn't work very well is that not all the top skaters choose to do the GP. Then, no matter how good they are they get knocked down the list over lesser skaters who choose to do the GP. Big problem IMO.

For example, look at the pairs rankings. Totmianina & Marinin are ranked only 5th. This is astounding when you consider they've won the last 2 Worlds. And now with Shen & Zhao out, they're the prohibitive favorites to win the Olympics. Yet they're ranked only 5th? It makes no sense.

I doubt anyone really pays attention to these rankings. I agree they seem like simply another attempt on Speedy's part to get more press attention or prop up the Grand Prix series.

True but there is a world of difference to say given the ISU criteria (which means you have to do the GP to get a high standing) and saying Rochette and Poykio are in the top ten and are therefore better skaters than Kwan which is patently untrue, Kwan is a better skater than both of those girls. Onda and Sebestyen are also in the top ten list and i would say Kwan is head, shoulders and half her torso above those two in terms of skating skills. I would also say she's without a doubt a better skater and Suguri (number 3 in the standings) and also Ando but i know that some people might prefer their skating to Kwan's.

Ant

Onda Sebestyen Sugri and Ando

Yeah....I was just trying to clarify to Joe my understanding of the ranking system (of course Sylvia much smarter just gave us the link to the explanation itself)...I was trying to say that I wouldn't take the ranking to be indicative of a decline per se for Kwan...but in terms of her placements, the world's finish is (albeit it slight and not indicative of a clear trend since she placed 'on the podium' for the short and long, but her qualifier kept her off).

As a poster said earlier, the ranking isn't totally bogus...it tracks who is doing what; not who CAN do what. But I think anyone who knows anything about skating at all would know that kwan on a bad day is a far superior skater than many of those ranked above her; they would also know she hasn't competed much lately compared to those same people. that's all.

The bottom line on all this is as I said before Kwan doesn't give a hoot about where she stands in this ranking. I strongly suspect other skaters feel the same way. It's a ranking signifying nothing. It may have something to do in the skating order of the Qualifying Rounds. I'm not sure.

Joe

Kwan doesn't give a hoot because she makes tons of money off shows and is always assured of at least one GP invite (not that she even cares about the GP at this stage in her career). A skater like Jenna McCorkell takes the rankings very seriously because it could give her an opportunity to get into a GP. If there is one good thing about this ranking system, it does give the little skater from a no name federation a chance to do well in smaller events and secure invites to bigger events. Upon further reflection, that's probably why the rankings are set up the way they are. A skater that won a few small events the season prior and then misses this season due to injury still can maintain his/her ranking enough to secure invites to events. Since there aren't that many events in skating anyway, it's probably best to carry over results from the previous years so a skater won't lose ground due to injury. For skaters whose federations don't host events and otherwise have no assurance of guaranteed invites, such a system really helps them out.

Kwan doesn't give a hoot because she makes tons of money off shows and is always assured of at least one GP invite (not that she even cares about the GP at this stage in her career). A skater like Jenna McCorkell takes the rankings very seriously because it could give her an opportunity to get into a GP. If there is one good thing about this ranking system, it does give the little skater from a no name federation a chance to do well in smaller events and secure invites to bigger events. Upon further reflection, that's probably why the rankings are set up the way they are. A skater that won a few small events the season prior and then misses this season due to injury still can maintain his/her ranking enough to secure invites to events. Since there aren't that many events in skating anyway, it's probably best to carry over results from the previous years so a skater won't lose ground due to injury. For skaters whose federations don't host events and otherwise have no assurance of guaranteed invites, such a system really helps them out.

But do skaters get invites to competitions on the basis of the ISU's "World Rankings"? I though that for GPs it was based solely on the results from worlds securing countries certain berths at competitions in addition to the seeded skaters being made to go to particular competitions. After that a country that has done well gets so many berths and then its up to their National body who they send to that competition.

Equally the Senior "B" competitions i thought were doled out to countries and then the National Federation choses they send?

The Grand Prix assignments are indeed made skater by skater, not country by country.

Only Grand Prix host countries have the opportunity to invite unranked skaters at the end of the seeding process.

A non-host country has no other way to get their promising skaters into the the GP in the first place except by sending them to other competitions so they can make a name for themselves, and with this system to earn a ranking that gives them the right to at least one GP spot.

Scroll down to section 2.2, esp. paragraph c), for how this affects skaters like McCorkell, or Poykio before she made it into the top 10.

But once again, IMO the title of the list is a bit misleading.

What do you expect from the title "World Standings"? If you just expect the results of the last world championships, it's easy enough to look that up directly, but it won't include skaters who didn't get to participate at Worlds for whatever reason.

The stated objectives of the world standings that include all qualified international events are:

1. OBJECTIVES
1.1 To present to the public at large and the media, an acceptable and accountable standings system of all skaters in figure skating in a particular season.
1.2 To guarantee objectivity and a process for selection of individual entries to the various ISU events. To provide an acceptable explanation for athletes not accepted for entry.
1.3 To provide athletes with a competitive explanation vis a vis their standings with fellow athletes.

To me, knowing what they use it for and don't use it for (personally I think they should also use it for seeding qual rounds at Worlds and Junior Worlds), that tells me that the standings are going to combine results from many competitions to allow ranking of skaters who didn't compete against each other directly.

We might not like the specific numerical weighting of the different kinds of competitions (junior vs. senior, Grand Prix vs. B events vs. championships, last year vs. this year) and the rankings they produce, in which case we might not agree that the actual results produced are "acceptable."

If most of the member federations dislike the weighting strongly enough, they'll change the weighting. But at least it's a lot clearer why skaters are ranked as they are and a lot fairer means of distributing GP assignments than what they were doing a few years ago, which was more political and subjective.

But if you expect the rankings to take into account where skaters who didn't compete as much would have placed if they had done so, that would just be speculative and subjective again.

Good rationale, gKelly but imo, and like Soogar somewhat, I think of the little skater for the GPs. The entrants are not open for many skaters. Less than "the last two groups" to skate and only the very top skaters are assured of being selected.

I would prefer it to be open for skaters who have not won a medal at Worlds or Olys, then let each Federation nominate 2 skaters and let the ISU decide.